On Comments: I can take a little debate, but...

...I cannot stand spam in my blog's comments. I just turned on word verification to prevent comment spam. I didn't know what this was before and it really didn't matter since up until last week I really thought that maybe two people read my blog and then only on rare occasion.

This blog began on a whim and I really don't know how to do much other than post. I would like to add links to other blogs and a viewing counter (not for my ego's sake, but if I knew people were actually looking at this blog, I might throw a little energy into being articulate). Can anyone tell me how to do this?